Battle.net gets a makeover

via cvg

Blizzard Entertainment has suggested that online-focus and the development of its Battle.net gaming service will be a key part of its next project.

Describing itself as an "online game company" to CVG yesterday, Itzik Ben Bassat, VP of business development, explained that the developer sees "so many opportunities and possibilities" in online gaming "that I think that's what we're going to focus on - how do we take Battle.net, and converting that from the great narrowband experience that it used to be to an absolutely unbelievable broadband experience that it will be."

When asked if this is something that will be incorporated into Blizzard's next project, Bassat replied "Absolutely".

We also took the opportunity to quiz him about news hitting toward the end of 2006 that the developer will make a major announcement this year.

"We're making an announcement when we're ready to make announcements. We haven't made an announcement so far", Bassat said. So that clears that up then.

"But the main thing to remember is that we have two other franchises, Diablo and StarCraft, and there's a lot of people at Blizzard who are very passionate about these franchises, and as long as we're passionate about a certain franchise, we will not desert it, we will continue developing that.

"It's been a while since we released the last Diablo game and even more since we released the last StarCraft game. As a StarCraft player - StarCraft is my favourite Blizzard game - I hope it wouldn't be a decade from the time that we released StarCraft until we see the next StarCraft game."

So are you saying that's something we might see announced this year? "When we have something to announce we're going to announce it, but as a player I hope that it'll be as soon as possible", was the reply.